[iwar] New Network to Link U.S., Russia, China

New Network to Link U.S., Russia, China

Dec 23, 10:10 AM (ET)

By JIM PAUL

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - Soon scientists in the United States, China and
Russia will be able to collaborate in cyberspace over a new high-speed
computer network that includes the first direct computer link across the
Russia-China border, developers say.

The network, expected to go online next month, will ring the Northern
Hemisphere, connecting computers in Chicago with machines in Amsterdam,
Moscow, Siberia, Beijing and Hong Kong before hooking up with Chicago
again, said Greg Cole of the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications, one of the leaders of the Little GLORIAD project. Data
will flow at 155 million bytes per second.

"This new network permits us to learn more from each other in areas
where we have not worked together in the past," Cole said Monday.

The NCSA, based at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus,
received $2.8 million from the National Science Foundation to fund the
U.S. portion of the network for the next three years. Russia and China
are spending similar amounts, Cole said.

"As we aim to strengthen our nations' capabilities in research, we also
aim to contribute to the cumulative knowledge that lifts the prospects
of people everywhere," NSF director Rita Colwell said in a statement
announcing the plans.

The NSF's program officer for the project, William Y. Chang, did not
immediately return a phone call to his Arlington, Va., office Monday.

Scientists have always had computer networks separate from the consumer
Internet that assure them the capacity to transfer huge volumes of
information at speeds much faster than typical Internet transfers and
for real-time collaboration on high-tech experiments, Cole said.

Little GLORIAD - an acronym for Global Ring Network for Advanced
Application Development - will allow scientists and educational
researchers to work together on such issues as responding to natural
disasters, safeguarding nuclear material, monitoring earthquakes or
joint space exploration.

They also could collaborate to remotely monitor or control high-tech
equipment and even could get together face-to-face by video conferencing
over the network, he said.

"This is specifically so our scientists and educators can work together
more easily," Cole said. "The technology is really rather amazing with
what it allows us to do on a daily basis."

The fiber optic connection between China and Russia that makes the
network possible was completed a few months ago, Cole said. Final
touches are being put on the China-Russia link, and the global network
should see its first traffic on Jan. 5.

A formal launching ceremony is planned for Jan. 12 in Beijing, he said.

Scientists from Russia and the United States have had direct computer
linkage for about five years, while Russia and China often exchanged
scientific information by meeting in Chicago, Cole said. The new network
should strengthen the collaboration between those countries, he said.

Little GLORIAD is a "first big step" toward development of the
higher-speed GLORIAD, Cole said. That effort, expected to be launched
later this year, will move data at 10 gigabytes per second, 60 times
faster than the Little GLORIAD.

Computer connections have fostered scientific collaborations that
otherwise might not have happened, Cole said.

"There's some advantage to having people being able to talk more
regularly," he said. "There are fewer misunderstandings. I think these
networks are going to be more important to the more critical issues that
we're all addressing together."

-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to serve --
Fred Cohen - http://all.net/ - fc@all.net - fc@unhca.com - tel/fax: 925-454-0171
Fred Cohen & Associates - University of New Haven - Security Posture

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Received on Thu Dec 25 21:40:14 2003